A Shot in the Dark: A Twitten Mystery (A Constable Twitten Mystery)

Product Information

the concept—low key but near universal incompetence in a detective series is (from where I'm sitting) refreshing I read many British mysteries. But this series continues to confuse me with Briticisms and product names available only in England. Possibly only in the past. My Kindle dictionary doesn’t even know what they mean. I also don’t like or relate to the bumbling policemen. They have an office cleaner who is really a master criminal. Their chief didn’t notice he was being conned by the local wax museum. Reading The Man that got Away forces the reader to totally suspend disbelief.

I am grateful to author Lynne Truss, Bloomsbury Publishing, Plc and Netgalley for having provided a free advanced reader e-copy of this book. Their generosity, however, has not influenced this review - the words of which are mine alone.I was originally drawn in to this book by its strangely odd title and its comically mild but aesthetically pleasing cover. I read the blurb and didn’t know what to think...obviously I dived right in!

stars. I wish to thank NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for providing me with an ARC in return for an honest review. I regret that I had difficulty maintaining interest in this book. I usually enjoy quirky characters, humour and mystery, and am sorry that this didn't work for me. There are several threads that are good here; we have the blind wax sculptor that makes dreadful likenesses for the wax museum, and there’s Inspector Steine being duped into believing a con woman is his long lost niece. But the most memorable, achingly funny bits are centered around Mrs. Groynes, the police station’s secretary who is also the janitor, and also the brains of an organized crime ring. Twitten knows this, and Groynes knows that he knows, but he cannot persuade another living soul that it’s true, and so there she remains, unhindered, using her job to obtain intelligence that in turn helps her underworld minions avoid detection. I love reading stories set in my home town of Brighton, it's just a shame that I've not heard of this series sooner.This is the third Constable Twitten book. These are funny cop stories set in Brighton, England in the 1950s. Twitten is a very clever upper class twit who is obscessed with being a police detective. His fellow policemen resent his smarty pants stuff. After several weeks of essay writing (perhaps more tense this week due to impending deadlines!) it was exactly the kind of book to unwind to – whilst I couldn’t put it down myself, it doesn’t pressure you the same way other thrillers and mysteries are perhaps more likely to do, which I thoroughly appreciated. Perhaps a book to Lynne Truss is hilarious, but with this fourth installment of the Constable Twitten series, she has outdone herself. My thanks go to Net Galley and Bloomsbury for the review copy. This book is riotously funny, and it's for sale now. Twitten overheard young lovers planning to run away while Inspector Steine is busy getting his wax model done. The very same young man is soon found dead on a beach chair. The main plot follows Twitten trying to solve the case admits all the other problems.

In conclusion ... it was amusing, engaging, but a bit of a curate's egg in terms of humour. And, of course, not really a mystery at all, because we knew who was up to what most of the time. I did not read the debut in this series, A Shot in the Dark; however, I don’t think that would have made a difference. Stop reading now if you plan to read the series from the beginning, and you don’t want spoilers.The author has an unerring ear for dialogue and setting. The book really reads exactly like it was written contemporaneously for the time in which it's set. The pacing is superb and it moves along at a good clip. I never found my interest flagging. Ms. Truss has a deft touch with characterizations (she's been writing these characters for a while for audio plays, and it shows). There's a decidedly "keystone cops" element to the characterisations, with the lead policemen being naive and/or dim, whilst the criminal elements of Brighton attempt to exterminate one another with one of the chief underworld bosses actually working in the police department facility as a charwoman. After that, Lynne enrolled herself at the University College of London and obtained her Bachelor of Arts Honors in Literature and English Language. She was also awarded with the Morley Medal, the George Smith Prize, the Rosa Morrison Scholarship, and the Graduate Diploma in the year 2011-12. After completing her post graduation, author Lynne started working as a library assistant at the London Library University between the years 1973 and 1974. Then she worked as a sub-editor for the Radio Times, deputy literary editor for the Times Higher Education, and as a literary editor for The Listener. Author Lynne decided to have a change in career path and eventually began working as a freelance writer. She worked for a number of daily magazines until the year 1997. Later, Lynne was taken up by the Sunday Telegraph as a regular writer for writing 7 weekly columns for the paper. She even started working for the Saga for writing monthly columns. After spending a number of years working as a journalist, author Lynne decided to try her hand at writing books, and therefore she entered into the world of novel writing. She holds fellowships from numerous prestigious institutions like the Brighton University, the University College of London, the Open University, and the New York’s Visual Arts School.

An added perk is that this is the first in a series, and so the reader can get in on the ground floor. Just don’t trip over the corpse. Ahh, where to begin?...This is definitely not your usual cozy mystery - mystery for sure, but way more farcical with a grand touch of Keystone Cops. I’m getting increasingly bored with this series. Constable Twitten must be the most unobservant policeman, or even person, in Britain. He didn’t realize how to collect his pay for six weeks? He didn’t find out about a cafeteria in the police station for even longer? He knows who the Moriarty in Brighton is but doesn’t tell a soul? Speaking of the Moriarty, does she have to be behind all of Brighton’s crimes? A trusted member of a local gang has disappeared part way through planning a huge heist; a violent criminal obsessed with boiling the heads of policemen has escaped Broadmoor and is rumoured to be headed towards the city, while at Gosling's department store an American researcher has been found dead in the music section. the omniscient voice means that we have a safe distance between us and all the melodramatic goings-on. I'd never read something with this amount of violence by anyone with pretentions to realism or (heaven forfend) grittinessMurder by Milk Bottle is the third in the Constable Twitten historical mystery series. Set in Brighton in 1957, the story takes place over the August long weekend. There are three murders in one night. Each victim (a beauty contest runner-up, an AA patrolman, and a visiting radio celebrity) has been hit over the head with a full milk bottle and then stabbed with the broken remains.